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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9546206" data-attributes="member: 907">My impression is that GURPS was originally designed for something like fantasy gladiatorial combat. That's why the four stats are what they are: Strength (determines damage and encumbrance), Dexterity (speed and accuracy), Health (hit points*, survivability, and resistance to injury), and Intelligence (mostly useful for mages), and why they used to be costed the same**. There's a good amount of things in previous editions that seems scaled for this, such as Toughness costing 10 points for a natural DR of 1 (which matters little in a modern game where weapons often do 3d to 5d of damage, but matters a lot when damage is about 1d for melee attacks). Wealth is an advantage because it gives you better weapons and armor. Turns are a second long because when the focus is on two dudes duking it out in melee things can be happening really fast. Melee weapons have Swing (high) and Thrust (low) damage, with post-armor modifiers for cutting and impaling weapons so you can either have things like maces and hammers that do Swing + high number but crushing damage, axes doing Swing + low number doing cutting damage, or spears and daggers doing thrust damage but impaling, thereby making different weapons better in different situations, with swords being versatile but expensive as heck.The rest of the system kind of got bolted onto this melee combat engine, which is why you have things like Will being based on IQ with modifiers for advantages, and the same going for most social stuff.* 4e makes hit points a function of Strength and Fatigue of Health. Previous editions had those reversed.** Pre-4e had all four stats use the same table for costs, with accelerating costs for higher stats. 4e recognizes the higher value of DX and IQ and charges a flat 20 points per step for those, and 10 points per step for ST and HT.</blockquote>

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